Re: Function to download a URL and return it as a string

[Jambunathan K]

May be you can steal some stuff from 

    M-x find-library RET package.el

specifically

    C-h f package--with-work-buffer

Or 

You can file an enhancement request so that some of this stuff could be
moved out of package.el to someother library.

ps: I know nothing about handling HTTP requests.  Just pitching in with
few pennies.

Sean McAfee <eefacm@gmail.com> writes:

> I recently wanted to be able to download a document from a URL and
> return it as a string.  I couldn't find a function that did that
> precisely, but I was able to construct my own:
>
> (defun download (url)
>   (with-current-buffer (url-retrieve-synchronously url)
>     (prog2
>         (when (not (search-forward-regexp "^$" nil t))
>           (error "Unable to locate downloaded data"))
>         (buffer-substring (1+ (point)) (point-max))
>       (kill-buffer))))
>
> This seems rather busy for such a basic-seeming operation--in
> particular, having to take care to delete the buffer created by
> url-retrieve-synchronously.  Is there a better way to do it?
>
> (On the other hand, this way I get to use prog2, which I almost never
> do.)
>

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